


mission 'npossible, with commentary

by sinead



Category: NSYNC, Popslash
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spy, Author Commentary, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-02-01
Updated: 2004-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-09 00:31:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinead/pseuds/sinead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A popslash spy AU with added textual commentary by the author.  It was originally posted in 2004, as part of the LiveJournal "dvd commentary" meme that started the trend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	mission 'npossible, with commentary

**Author's Note:**

> This work has some not-very-graphic descriptions of violence and the aftermath of torture.

**new guy**

  


> I warned Imogen (who requested this commentary) that it might consist of nothing but a lot of "spies are sooo cool", so we shall see how this goes. In any case, since the fic in question is, um, light-weight, the commentary is going to be correspondingly buoyant. I hope.
> 
> I started writing this around the time that AUs kind of started blooming among the popslash authors I was reading a lot of (not to say that AUs weren't being written before that--particularly high school scenarios, which have been around since day one, as far as I can tell.) Writing AUs in this fandom is irresistably appealing--as a fictional conglomeration, *nsync is so _bendy_. All the complexities of their characters and relationships can be twisted into so many different kinds of shapes. As for me, I love spy stories. And [this picture](http://gaypants.com/roving/images/Chrisboys02.jpg) was part of the inspiration for the way this one developed, i.e., who's sleeping with whom.

"Got someone new for you to look at," Johnny said.

"Yeah?" Chris said idly. "For the talent pool?" They were at the Estate, in Johnny's office. Chris sometimes thought he could almost hear the whirr and click of the bugs as they recorded his voice, but not today.

"No," Johnny replied. "For your team." When Chris didn't reply, just sat and stared at him, he added smoothly, "You need to replace Jason."

"Joey--" Chris began, his voice tight.

"Joey's good. But we both know his limitations. You need a fifth operative."

In an earlier life, Chris might have mistaken the expression in Johnny's eyes for kindness, or compassion. "Time to move on, Chris." Johnny put his hands on the desk and stood up, gesturing to a file on the table at Chris' elbow. "He'll be here tomorrow. Have your team assembled." Once Johnny stood up, the meeting was over. Chris took the file and left.

In bed that night, Chris lay staring up into the dark. The file on this new guy was impressive, he had to grant that. Weapons expertise out the ass, electronics and explosive knowledge, which was what the team needed, and even some scene experience. There had been no photograph, no personal information, which Chris found more than a little disquieting. It meant Johnny had decided to leave that out, for some reason. All he knew about the prospective candidate was that he was male, which was not surprising. His team was one of two in the IMF that were all men; they did specialized work. And AJ's team was past it, in Chris' estimation.

He thought about Jason's disappearance. It was hard to see outside of the context of his own failure at losing a team member. _Time to move on._ Most days, he couldn't even remember what Jason looked like. He must have moved, or made a sound, because there was a stirring next to him in the bed.

> I implied AJ was the leader of his own team, here; I knew less about Backstreet than I do now, and I was kind of going on looks alone with that. He looks like a badass, ergo. Ergo, schmergo--Kevin makes more canonical sense. This is where I cop to the fact that writing a series, even one where the parts are as loosely connected and non-sequential as this one, should really have a little planning upfront, but I started writing this as total shoot-from-the-hip girl.
> 
> For me, Chris is so not the classic leader of men. I liked the fact that Chris as the commander of what is essentially a quasi-military group is not a perfect storybook fit. He's not going to be turning his profile into the setting sun while setting his manly jaw and delivering an inspiring speech. He's going to lead by being smart and wily and sneaky and by feeling terribly responsible for them, maybe too much so.

"Chris," came Justin's muffled voice.

"It's okay," he said. "Go back to sleep."

* * *

The sun was bright the next morning as they waited on the lush green sweep of lawn that led to the training ground. Chris was briefly distracted by the red and gold highlights in Justin's hair. JC lay full length on the grass, his arms behind his head, designer sunglasses in place. Chris noted that he had cut the arms out of his t-shirt--again. He noted that there were finger sized bruises on his biceps, again, and guessed there were probably more on his hips. Have to remind them to knock that off before the next op, Chris thought. Bruises like that might tip off the mark. He still thought of their targets as "marks". A childhood spent working short cons on carny circuits had given him some habits that were hard to shake. Joey sat next to JC, wearing black Raybans and chewing a toothpick.

> I am a fan of Mission: Impossible, the original tv series. Or I was, when I watched it as a kid. In my memory of it, it really differs from the movies in some significant ways; the movies are mostly about Tom Cruise, but the show was all about the team, and how the team worked together to pull off all of these complicated scams. Looking back on it, it was kind of a television anomaly--there was no sexual tension, no sense of any personal life for any of the characters. They were all relentlessly professional, and the job was our only context for knowing them, even the woman character (which was practically revolutionary for the time this show was made.) So, the team thing is perfect for *nsync, right? because one of the problems with putting them in a different context--a context where they are not five guys who have been in the same band for years--is figuring out a plotline in which they have reasons to be closely related. I am not great at plotting, and I liked having a structure that mirrored their group dynamic in very specific ways. That no personal life and no sex aspect had to go, of course.
> 
> Spies and spy narratives have both an advantage and a great disadvantage for me and what I think of as my specific skills. They are chock full of secrets, lies, unspoken angst, internal conflicts, divided loyalties, all in the face of death and danger, so they are ripe for the creation of these defining moments, where big things are suddenly revealed in little ways. That I can do. Classically, they are also complicated narratively, with plots and counterplots and reversals, and that I'm not good at. I don't have the patience. Which is why these bits have ended up being more of a pastiche than anything else.

"Yo, Chris," he said. "This the guy?" He pointed with his chin.

Chris had sunglasses on too, but he shaded his eyes to watch the man approach. Fuck, he's young, thought Chris. He looked younger than Justin. He had seen them, too, but he didn't vary his speed, sauntering casually across the lawn. Like them, he was wearing the close fitting black pants and shirt that were standard training issue, but he looked like he was dressed for something other than training.

"Arrogant little cocksucker," Joey said. JC propped himself up on his elbows to watch. He got close enough to see his face, his eyes, and Chris thought, not so young as all that. Pretty, too. Well, that comes in handy. The man reached them and stopped, meeting their appraisal with a cool stare of his own.

Chris nodded at him. "Chris Kirkpatrick."

"Lance Bass, Mr. Kirkpatrick," came the reply. The voice was deep and soft, with a slight Southern accent. His eyes were clear and green as peridot, and about as revealing. Joey gave a little snort. Even Justin was smiling.

"Call me Chris." Probably some Quantico dropout, Chris thought dispassionately. They trained them up to be polite in Hooverland. "Let's get started."

Several hours later, he was beginning to think that Johnny might be on to something with this one. Lance had scored in the high nineties on every training exercise, both alone and with the team. His target shooting was exceptional, especially at long ranges.

"Must have been all that practice shooting squirrels, huh, bubba?" Joey said. Lance had smiled sweetly, meaninglessly.

"Guess it must have," he said.

Chris knew what lay behind that. Joey didn't trust pretty boys, not until he had fucked them, and usually, not even then. "Okay, let's try some hand-to-hand," Chris said. What the hell, may as well get it over with. "Joey."

Joey grinned, an expression that had been the last thing Chris had seen any number of times before he landed flat on his ass. Even Justin, who moved like a snake, and had a slight advantage in height, couldn't take Joey. Joey and Lance squared off, circling one another. Joey was still smiling. Lance was expressionless. He feinted to Joey's left, too slow, Chris thought, and then what happened next happened so fast he didn't see it. But Joey was on the ground, with Lance's knee in his groin, and Lance's knifepoint under his chin.

"Guess you need some more practice, huh, bubba," Lance said softly, and his smile was anything but meaningless.

"God _damn_ ," Justin breathed, next to Chris. JC was smirking.

Joey stared into Lance's face as he eased his knee off of Joey's groin. He sat back on Joey's thigh and slowly withdrew the knife. "Guess I know where to get more practice when I need it," Joey said. Their eyes didn't waver.

> In some part of my heart, it _is_ always all about the jola, even the fucked-up, antagonistic variety. I wanted to take all of these fannish givens about *nsync and their characters and try to turn them inside out, while keeping them recognizable. So Joey and Lance are instantly drawn to one another, even if it's at knifepoint. I also enjoyed giving Lance The Geeky Bad Dancer a whiff of the stone killer vibe.

Chris walked over and gave Lance his hand, pulling him to his feet. Then he did the same for Joey. "Be here tomorrow at oh eight hundred," he said. "And Lance? Next time I say hand-to-hand, leave the knife in your boot." 

  


**perfectly clear**

  


In the three weeks after JC joined the team, Joey got in four fights at the Estate. The last one put Carter in the infirmary, and Joey on suspension. 

> ah, slash. It's so endlessly revealing, isn't it? I imagined this encounter between Joey and Nick as a kind of sublimated little testosterone fueled display for JC's attention; they would be bumping chests and doing that kind of posturing that ends in punches, while JC looked on. Because depending on who is doing the chest bumping, I can find that kind of behavior simultaneously endearing, completely ridiculous and hot. And JC is supposed to be kind of a siren in this, someone whose charms seem worth a suspension or a stay in the infirmary. Putting Nick in the infirmary was a little OTT, now that I think of it--I didn't imagine Joey breaking his arm, or anything. Oh well, put it down to Johnny being careful of his investment in his spies, that his policy is to send them to the nurse for every scratch.

Chris found JC in the weight room, doing presses. He stood in the door, watching the smooth flex of the muscles in JC's arms and chest, until he was sure he could speak calmly.

"Chasez, a moment of your time." The sarcasm did not seem to be lost on JC, who got up quickly and followed him into the deserted hall. Chris looked at him. He was wearing a tank and a tight pair of ragged shorts that had started life as a tight pair of blue jeans. The eyes of every agent in the weight room had followed him to the door. 

"I brought you in because I needed a good scene man," Chris said. 

JC wiped his face with a towel, and said guilelessly, "I appreciate the chance." 

"I brought you in," Chris continued, as if JC hadn't spoken, "and I'll toss you back in a heartbeat if you fuck up this team I'm trying to build."

JC stopped wiping his face, which grew wary. 

"Never, never play a scene with your teammates," Chris said. "You leave that shit for the targets." He stepped closer, and lowered his voice. JC, in some long forgotten automatic response, dropped into parade rest and was staring at a point on the wall over Chris' shoulder. "Now either make good on all the cockteasing you've been doing in Joey's direction, or cut him loose." He was in JC's face, his voice almost a whisper. "Is that perfectly clear?"

"Perfectly," JC said, his eyes jerking to Chris' face and then jerking away again. 

> So, the "scene" thing. I was not very satisfied with the way I started to work this aspect into the stories, but see above, re: shooting from the hip. In MI, the tv show, the episodes often took the form of the team setting up this complicated sting operation, where certain team members played characters, sometimes impersonated people, and others worked behind the scenes. With split second timing and choreographed interaction, they got the secret plans or the weapon or whatever the goal of the week was, and disappeared into the night before the Bad Guys realized what was happening. JC was the one I imagined as having the exceptional skills for the performance part of it, able to be a kind of chameleon. And then there was opportunity to put JC into situations where he would be the sexy bait, which is always fun, too.

"Good," said Chris. "Because right now, if it's a choice between him and you, you're fucked." 

JC nodded and turned to go. Chris let him get halfway down the hall before he called out, watching the muscles in JC's back tense as he stopped.

"JC?" he said. "Better start working this out tonight."

In the end, Joey came back after three days suspension and apologized to Carter. There were no more incidents. Other IMF agents learned to keep their eyes to themselves when JC and Joey were around. But Chris remembered the tiny, feral gleam he'd seen at the bottom of JC's eyes when "you're _fucked_ " had been breathed into his face, and stored it away for future use.

> JC is a kinky motherfucker, isn't he? at least he is here. Hmm, maybe this is the point at which I can say that in this, I imagine all of them as having Pasts, and JC's past maybe involves some kind of mercenary foreign legion-ish type experience, with a little under the radar black ops thrown in. Because this universe is not about The Plausible, in case that wasn't already clear. Also, it was fun to be anti-romantic. Chris, that pimpin' dawg, doesn't care about whether JC hearts Joey, he just cares about whether JC is going to fuck Joey good and proper and keep the team running smoothly.

  


**joey's choice**

  


> This is my favorite part of the series, maybe my favorite thing I've written in popslash.

Joey chose people. The day, the horrible, hungover, fucked-his-life-for-good day that Chris had walked into that armpit of a guardhouse, flanked by the two MPs whom he managed to make look stupid and slow, even though Joey knew they were neither, and stood in the door of the cell and said, "I'd like to offer you a job", Joey chose Chris. Something about days that bad gave things a certain clarity. Days like that, you could look up from a patch of stained concrete floor framed by your own boots and into a pair of wary dark eyes and just know.

The day he chose Justin was also a very bad day, the worst he could remember. Things had gone wrong from the start of the op, and Justin and Jason, who were both players in the scene, had been made as agents, which should have been the worst thing that could have happened. Except for the fact that they had also both been captured, which was so catastrophically bad Joey couldn't even think about it. Instead, he concentrated on Chris, as he calmly went over the plan. The plan to get them back. JC's cover was still intact, although hanging by a thread, and he had risked it to get them the intell on where Jason and Justin were being kept in that huge fucking fortress of a house. Goddamn _infrared_ and pressure sensitive _floor_ tiles, and goddamn cameras every _four_ feet, why didn't they just dig a fucking _moat_ , but he nodded and studied the floorplans with Chris, and said,

"you get me the time, I'll get them out" 

and tried not to think about how he had played one-on-one with Justin the weekend before, Justin dancing around him and talking trash until Joey had tackled him to the ground and they lay there, gasping with laughter, and Joey had been surprised to realize that he actually liked Justin, he thought Justin was an okay kid. Now he was on the move, and his head was completely in the mission, his sole focus on the next objective, the next twenty feet of corridor, the next corner to check, the next lock to burn, and he was listening to Chris and JC on his headset as he moved, and the part of Joey that had gotten queasy thinking about what might be happening to Justin and Jason went away and was very quiet, because that part had nothing to do with the mission, that part would only get in the way.

> These paragraphs sum up everything I think is right and wrong with this part. I so clearly don't know what the hell I'm talking about when it comes to anything like breaking and entering or carrying out a rescue operation, and I was too lazy to do much in the way of research; all of my technical spy stuff in this series is drawn from my incomplete memories of a mish-mash of movies, television and the odd book, none of which were exactly authoritative sources. And sometimes I think the run-on sentence trick works, and sometimes it doesn't. But I love Joey in this. Love, love, love. I liked taking nice, good-natured, loving Joey, who will do anything for his brothers, and skewing him just enough in the spy funhouse mirror to be a bit crazy, single-minded, Chris' very own pitbull, who takes every threat to the team personally and woe to those who get in his way. It's a stretch to imagine Joey as scary. But if you can do it, I think Joey could be really scary.

And finally, _finally_ , it seemed like everything was going good, everything was proceeding according to plan, because JC had taken out the cameras without tripping an alarm, and Chris was taking out the perimeter security and standing by the mother of all big bangs to cover their escape, and he was heading for Jason, the place Jason was supposed to be. Jason was the primary objective, because Jason had been point man on the op, and Jason had actually gotten a look at the information they had originally come to steal, about a million years ago. If Jason was still alive, if he still had higher cerebral functions and wasn't in drug-induced psychosis, he might just have what they needed, so Jason came first.

He reached the room indicated on the floorplan by JC's intell, and hit the door low and hard, going in fast, and fuck, there was nothing there, no one, and he was up and out in the hall and heading for the secondary presumed location for Jason when everything started to fall apart. First there was JC's hissed curse on the headset, something about Melcher, who was head of security, and Chris was saying, "I don't care if you have to do a fucking lap dance, just keep him out of--", and then the alarms went off. Chris was yelling the countdown in his ear, and Joey just kicked the second door in, no time for finesse, and again, there was nothing, except this time there was Jason's jacket, neatly folded over the back of a chair. It could have meant anything, or nothing, he might have sat there to be questioned, or to eat a meal or read a book or negotiate for his life. But he wasn't there now, so there was a third possible location for Jason, and a fourth, and Chris was screaming, "Jason is the primary, get Jason" as if the words hurt him and that's when Joey chose.

> This is where I throw poor Jason to the dogs, narratively speaking. I felt kind of bad about that for a while--not only does he miss out on being in *nsync, I kill him off in fic, too--but then I saw Driven, and actually saw Jason, and you know what? not feeling so bad about it anymore. I just didn't take to the boy, for some reason. So adios, Jason. We hardly knew ye.

He ripped the earpiece out of his ear, left it dangling so that Chris' voice was just a faint echo in his head, and went after Justin, who was exactly where JC said he would be, lying on a cot, drunk with narcotics and stumbling in pain when Joey pulled him to his feet, not looking at his face, because if he looked too long at Justin's face he would go out into the hall and find someone and kill them.

> I just love things like the fact that the earpieces they wear onstage are pretty much what I imagine Joey wearing here. Also, this is probably as close as I'm going to get (assuming I can ever finish writing the other pieces I have in mind for this) to an actual mission where I draw even the murkiest of parallels to their choreography as a group and their choreography as spies, to leave no dead horse unbeaten.

Instead, he got them both out, outside just as the detonation on the other side of the house went up and the blast concussion knocked Justin to his knees, outside as JC raced up, white faced and sweating, and helped him carry Justin to the perimeter where Chris was waiting, guarding their only way out. They ran past the bodies of the perimeter guards that Chris had dropped like candy wrappers in his path, and all Joey thought as he saw them was that when Chris saw Justin he would want to come back and kill them all over again. Then they were at the car, JC sliding behind the wheel, his papers on the seat, his story ready, his face for the scene cool and intact, because he would have to talk them past any checkpoints, and also because JC lived for the scene, he loved the scene, while Joey and Chris and Justin were rolling into the back, behind the dark tinted windows. Chris was questioning him, about Jason, about what went down, and all Joey could answer was "he wasn't there" until finally Chris stopped talking and Joey could lean his head back. Justin was slumped, propped like a ragdoll on the seat between them, and when Joey, his eyes at half mast, rolled his head over to look at him, he could just see Chris on Justin's other side. Chris' hand was stretched out, hovering above Justin's hand where it lay loosely on Chris' leg, and Chris' hand was shaking, and Joey knew that he had made the right choice, and he knew he had made it so Chris wouldn't have to. 

  


**strange place**

  


It was a strange place, he thought. The sky was a wash of tender pink and blue, and the puffy clouds were scalloped with gold. There were ducks on the lake behind the firing range. No one ever shot at the ducks.

Chris stood on the balcony of his quarters, staring across the Estate grounds in the direction of the setting sun. He wondered idly how a pack of spooks like the IMF had ended up on the flat, marshy ground of central Florida, among the tourists and the retirees and the farmers. Hiding in plain sight, he supposed. One day, he would have to ask Johnny.

The fading light had gilded the gravel path across the lawn. The sun set fast here, at this latitude, and as he watched, the path became a ghostly pale streak. As the light changed, it began to rain, a soft patter on the roof and in the palmettos. Chris kept peering into the subtropical twilight for a while longer, ignoring the occasional drops that fell on him, slanting under the eaves. When he suddenly turned and went inside, the motion of the approaching figure on the path was almost invisible. There was a steady crunch of thudding feet on the gravel. Chris sat on the couch in front of the fire, and picked up a dossier. He didn't look up when the sounds changed from footsteps on gravel to footsteps running up the stairs, but his knee beneath the manila folder bounced in perfect synchronization.

> Okay, laying the ironies on a little thick, here. Ouch. Anyway, I like descriptions of place. I love all of those sense details, and it was nice to get to do them. I actually pictured Chris' quarters as a kind of raised bungalow with deep eaves and a porch, but that doesn't really come across, and is probably regionally all wrong, since they aren't actually spies in colonial-era India.

There were breaths in the doorway, light and quick. Chris thought to himself, that sounds better than last week, and made himself wait another moment before looking up.

"Hey, Jup," he said casually. "How was it tonight?"

Justin was silhouetted in the strong light from the hallway as he bent over to take off his shoes. His t-shirt, damp with sweat and rain, clung to his ribs and arms. When he straightened, Chris could see the too sharp edge of his cheekbone. "Good," he said. "Felt pretty good." Aspirant pneumonia, the med staff had called it. One of the things his captors had tried when he wouldn't talk was to hold his head under water. It was only after tactics like that hadn't produced the desired results that they started with the drugs.

> if you're wondering if there is really such a thing as "aspirant pneumonia", your guess is as good as mine. I think I lifted that from a Star Trek novel.

Justin staggered slightly, pulling off his socks, and recovered himself. He looked up to catch Chris watching, and shrugged. In an elaborately disinterested voice he remarked, "do you suppose there are any clean towels?"

"Only if you did laundry," Chris replied, and looked down again at the dossier. "I've been in briefings all day."

"Fuck, I forgot." Chris could hear the rueful grin, and then his voice, floating back as he retreated down the hall, "I'll just have to use yours, then."

"Touch my towel and I'll kick your ass." But Justin had started the shower, and if he replied, Chris couldn't hear it, although he listened. He listened for the sound of coughing, too, but it didn't come.

Running was part of Justin's reconditioning program. Some coughing was to be expected, or so Lonnie had told him when Chris had cornered him in the gym, saying, "what the fuck--?" Lonnie had also told him, "you do your thing and let me do mine, okay, Kirkpatrick?" Then his voice had softened a bit, and he had thumped Chris on the shoulder with an enormous fist. "Ain't gonna let nothin' hurt him."

Justin came in the room, wearing a pair of sweats with ripped knees. He had a towel--Chris' towel--slung around his shoulders, and each curl was bronzed and sleek with water. He folded the towel beneath his head and stretched out on the floor in front of the fireplace. Chris could see a flash of teeth as he yawned, and for a moment, he simply looked like a carefree boy. Then he closed his eyes and muttered, "Chris."

Chris felt a little internal lurch, but only said, "hmm?"

"Last night." Justin didn't look at him, but stared into the fire. "I just," he paused and then rushed on, "wanted to say thanks, I guess, because I really did sleep better." He drew a breath, and whispered, "with you." He shivered once.

"C'mere," Chris said, but then he moved himself, pulling the ottoman over to sit on and tugging Justin up to lean back against his knees. Chris picked up the towel and began to rub his hair. He forced himself not to look at the firelight washing over the hard planes of Justin's chest and stomach, or the long bare feet, toes clenching into the nap of the rug. Instead, he concentrated on the memory of Justin's strangled cries in the depths of his nightmare. When Chris had climbed into the bed to try and wake him gently, Justin had clung to him with terrified, limpet-like strength, so that Chris could do nothing but stroke his back and hum. They hadn't talked, but eventually, they had slept, and there were no more nightmares for the rest of the night.

They needed to talk about it now, though. Chris needed to remind him about post-traumatic stress, and encourage him to schedule an extra session with the staff shrink. He tugged gently on Justin's hair, until Justin tipped his head back, regarding him with wary eyes.

"Tonight," Chris began. Justin didn't move or speak, but Chris could see the relief in the kid as he finished, "my bed is bigger."

> This part was all sort of a scene-setter for Things To Come, in which we would get into how Justin ended up working with them, and so forth. Justin's Past, in other words. I still may finish that part, so I won't say more, for fear of talking myself into a corner. I can say that it's slightly weird to look at this now, because I was basically writing NSA-era Justin and it was fairly contemporary; the Curls were still in force. That's the most symbolically freighted haircut since Samson, dude. Also, I can't remember why I thought it was a good idea to go rather h/c in this bit, since that's usually not my cup of tea as a writer.

  


**like it rough**

  


"Stop here," Chris said.

JC's hands were light on the wheel as he maneuvered the heavy car to the curb. He left the engine running. The street was lined with three and four story buildings that looked like they had once been the town homes of respectable merchants, and now were subdivided into working class flats. It was midafternoon, and deserted.

"Our place is two doors down." Chris did not point. It was narrow, three stories, painted a faded pink. "We have the top floor. There's no one on the second floor. The landlady on the first floor is on the payroll."

Joey was looking grim. "Do you know her?"

"It's okay, Joey."

"Not if she--" Joey cut himself off, and then continued, "I think we should all stay together."

"No," Chris said sharply. "The place is too small. We'll be too visible with four of us there, needing food, and fuck knows what else." He jerked his head at Justin, who was struggling to stay conscious between them in the back seat. "Go to the place on Rue des Paumes we talked about, and I'll contact you."

> See Sinead tapdance to try and keep the geographical location of this city as vague as possible! Mediterranean-ish area, and that's about all I can tell you. Basically, it takes place in movie-world Casablanca, which is to say, no where on Earth as we know it. To further complicate things, at one point I had people saying things in Spanish and German as well as the odd French phrase, until Christine tactfully pointed out to me that it was a *little* confusing, and she was so right. Rue des Paumes means "palm (of the hand) street." I think that's because there were lots of fortunetellers there. Oh, who am I kidding. I have no idea why I called it that.

"Everyday, Chris," Joey said sharply. "You got it? I don't hear from you on time, I'm over here in half an hour with a fucking Humvee and a howitzer, and screw the political consequences."

Chris made a gesture with his hand that combined acquiescence and impatience, and slid his shoulder under Justin's arm. "Time to go, kiddo." His voice was gently cheerful. "Just a little walk and then you can go to sleep." Chris pulled a baseball cap over Justin's curls and tugged the bill down to hide his face. They had stopped for a quick clean up, once JC had gotten them past the checkpoints and over the border, but there was nothing to do about how one of Justin's eyes was swollen shut, or the livid bruises on his jaw. Justin murmured and leaned against him. Chris looked up at Joey and nodded. "Door."

Joey opened the door and swung out. Chris slid over the seat, his face tense, carefully pushing Justin before him. JC watched in the rear view mirror as Joey leaned back in to help, dragging Justin from the car. Justin made an abrupt little sound of pain, and just as abruptly suppressed it. He watched through the windshield as they stumbled along the sidewalk together, matching their strides to Justin's so that they looked like two drunken pals supporting their even more drunken comrade. JC cracked the windows on either side of the car and slipped the safety off of the gun on the seat beside him. They reached the safe house and rang the bell. For a breathless minute, the door didn't open; Joey thumped the wood and called out a slurred " _est là?_ " The door opened. JC put the car in gear and hit the button to send the passenger side window sliding further down, and lifted the gun, carefully keeping it below the level of the dash. He strained his eyes, trying to see further inside the dark opening of the door, but the afternoon sun was too bright. He assessed his sight line without a hard target. Then Chris and Justin disappeared inside, and Joey turned and was weaving back towards the car. He had a vague smile on his face. JC began to ease away from the curb.

Joey opened the door and flopped into the front seat. "Go, C," he said in a low voice, and JC pulled out and they left the deserted street behind.

* * *

Rue des Paumes was close to the ocean, but mostly what that meant was that the flat blue air had a fishy tang. The hotel was a tall moldering slab of white stucco that catered to weekly transients. The desk clerk was wearing smudged eyeliner, and the slowly rotating ceiling fans in the lobby stirred his thinning hair. He looked up from his garish illustrated paper and pushed the ledger across for Joey to sign. "Quel poilu," he sighed as he eyed Joey, breathing out the scent of absinthe and ennui. "La ferme," JC suggested politely, while Joey scrawled in the ledger and pushed it back, along with a wad of cash. The clerk sniffed and held out a key in a languid hand. JC tried to read the paper upside down--beautiful boys!, he thought he saw. Imaginez les danses du Maroc.

The elevator creaked with age, but the room was clean enough and had its own bath. Joey disappeared into the bathroom; the water began to run. JC cracked open the tall shutters to let in a slanted bar of late afternoon light. He peeled off his clothes, the soft shirt and carefully tailored pants he had worn to pique Melcher's interest while on the job. He felt himself over, assessed his physical condition as he'd been trained to do years ago. Always make sure you're still whole after an op, he heard Baddou's voice say, because adrenaline, c'est une putain qui te couille. There was a patch of skin on the back of his hip that felt bruised and tender; he opened the shutters further to let in more light, and twisted to look at himself in the narrow mirror that hung on the wall. The spot was purplish, yellow. He thought back through the day's events, and realized he must have gotten it last night? The night before? He had a jumbled memory of the smell of stale cigarettes, the sheets twisted into ropes, Melcher's hoarse voice. A bite, a blow, the hard edge of the table. 

He looked up at his reflected face, indistinct in the wavering motes of the setting sun. It looked soft and startled, the blond streaks that had been put into his hair before the op transforming it into a nimbus around his head. A dark line of shadow fell across his neck, separating his head from his body, and he thought dispassionately that he looked like a victim of the guillotine.

> I had a lot of fun at [this site](http://www.notam02.no/~hcholm/altlang/ht/French.html), making sure that all my French vulgarisms were as close to accurate as possible, since they don't tend to teach you how to say "it's a whore that fucks you over" in French class. And that last line about the guillotine is me ~~ripping off~~ paying homage to Dorothy Sayers.

* * *

Joey sat on the bed, his back against the flat wooden headboard, his legs splayed out before him. His mouth was sweet-sharp with the taste of cognac. JC swung a knee over Joey's thighs to straddle him, and felt Joey's cock, heavy and wet against his thigh. He felt the shot of cognac he had drunk stinging under his own skin in tiny lightning pulses. Everything, the tightness of Joey's fist in his hair as they kissed, Joey's fingers tracing his ass, the stretch of his own thigh muscles as he pressed forward to push against Joey's stomach, twisted his desire higher and higher, until he was so hard it was almost frightening. He looked down, and put his hand on Joey, carefully pulling his cock upright, stroking him in the tight circle of lubed palm and fingers. Joey looked down and moaned and jerked and moved his hand to JC's hip, pulling him closer. He touched the bruise, Melcher's bruise. JC made a sound.

It must have been different from all the other sounds he was making, because Joey's eyes flew up and he said, "what?"

"Nothing," JC muttered, desperately kissing him, putting his tongue in Joey's mouth. But Joey leaned forward, carefully holding him at the waist and trying to see. JC grabbed his hand and pushed it down, back to his ass. "it was. just. he liked it rough." Joey stilled for a fraction of a second.

"Fuck me," JC breathed across Joey's mouth, and he could feel the shudder go through Joey's body at his words, his legs trembling beneath them on the bed, "fuck me." When Joey lifted his hands above his head to reach behind himself and carefully grip the top of the headboard, JC sucked in a breath and braced his own hands against the width of Joey's biceps. Joey's tattoos stood out in stark relief as the skin paled under his flexing fingers, flexing as he pushed down onto Joey, feeling the hot stretch. "Big," he whispered, and "there. _yes_. there." He came quickly, Joey groaning as he bent his head to watch the convulsion and splatter across their bellies.

"Don't come," JC gasped. Joey's groans went up in pitch, and he slumped a bit, tilting his hips higher, so that JC could plunge headlong onto his cock, twisting and breathless. JC struggled to keep his eyes open, wanted to watch Joey's face, see how he squinted and howled with mouth open in a rictus of pleasure, but in the end, he couldn't. When he came a second time, it was all velvety blackness behind his eyelids, and the faraway sound of Joey's cries, letting go, letting go, letting it all go.

Fucking after an op was always the best, JC thought, right before he passed out.

> It seems to make me something of a fannish anomaly, but I like writing sex. There have been stories where the sex was close to the first thing I wrote, or at least, something I wrote very early in the process. I don't like writing long, detailed sex scenes, the kind that go from soup to nuts, and I would be terrible at it, but I usually get a strong initial mental image for a sex scene, and can use that as the basis for any elaboration I need to do. In this case, it was JC sitting on Joey and turning himself on by saying out loud how big Joey feels, and then Joey watching JC's cock as he comes--such a guy thing, that love of the come shot. Basically, this installment is so that Joey and JC can have sex, because a) Joey and JC are hot together, and in real life, they seem to have a very physical relationship, b) this is the way I imagine that they do all of their communication in this universe--they're not sitting down and talking about feelings, and c) I wanted to do a sex scene that actually advanced the story in some way, that was revealing of character. With a chilly little anti-romantic coda.


End file.
